The Other Side of China’s Social Media Crackdown

A recently renewed attack on social media by the Chinese leadership isn’t just an offensive against bloggers and activists who dominate the daily online discourse in China.

It’s also an assault by the Communist Party on its own shortcomings.

The sweeping political strategy towards social media that’s been taking shape here began before President and Party chief Xi Jinping left for this year’s G20 summit in Russia, and it picked up speed and suspects while he was away. That’s a clear sign that there’s consensus in the Party leadership about how to handle dissent.

A screenshot shows Chinese-American social media celebrity Charles Xue talking about the dangers of the Internet.

Net Ease

The first part of the attack strategy involved the coordinated clampdown on leading microbloggers and social celebrities whose followings often sideline messages from state authorities.

That opening salvo from the Party involved a set of warnings to social media activists to be more responsible and less rumor-mongering. One strongly-worded essay in People’s Daily back in August (in Chinese) quoted a leading university president and National Peoples Congress member as stating that China had “a large number of [postings] that are illegal, indulgent, irresponsible, contrary to social morality, rumor-inducing, and carrying inflammatory rhetoric.”

The blame was placed on popular opinion-leaders who were frivolous in their comments and far too negative in their postings (in Chinese).